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Real science involves experiments and therefore proof of causality.
by mcrad 8y ago
Real science involves experiments and therefore proof of causality.
- koube 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econometrics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econometrics Which is a moot point because science is done without controlled experiments all of the time, e.g. astrophysics, epidemiology, sociology. One of the most famous cases in medicine is the connection of drinking water to cholera discovered using observation to connect deaths to a nearby well.
- mcrad 8y agoWell it’s great that they do more than just design experiments and hack p-vales all day;) Geez, had no idea it was such a controversial statement. What do you want to say, every application of math or coding counts as science? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science
- koube 8y agoWhether something is a "real science" is based on whether or not science is done, not the difficulty of the subject matter. Spending so much time trying to narrowly semanticize science in a way that specifically excludes economics is navel gazing. The purpose of these discussions seems to be to discredit economics and discount it's predictive power by defining it as not-science, but predictive power doesn't come from the definition of the word science, it comes from the statistical methods that science uses. Does it involve research? Does the research produce models with predictive power? Ok, let's use it, just like every policy maker in the world pre-2016.
- barry-cotter 8y agoEpidemiology, ecology, astronomy, cosmology, botany, zoology and geology obviously don’t count as sciences then. And you have no idea how much effort goes into randomised controlled trials and the search for good natural experiments and instrumental variables to answer economic questions, to say nothing of the actual experiments in economics done every time a price is changed or a new product appears. There is a ton of data in microeconomics. It may be hard to use and, ill fitted to the question you want to answer and difficult to get but there’s lots of data. Macroeconomics has many fewer data points and you can’t really perform experiments but even macro, for all the pointless math worship has made progress.
- mcrad 8y agoCounterpoints notwithstanding, Economics and other social sciences should be considered distinct from the more traditional fields of science that are rooted in clear cause-and-effect as demonstrated by controlled experts. You have no idea lol, obviously.
- dang 8y agoPersonal swipes will get you banned here. Please don't post like this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html